Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan is an autonomous region of northern Iraq, with the Kurdish regional government being established on 4 July 1992 and a transitional constitution being drafted on 30 January 2005. The state was established as a Kurdish homeland, and the Kurds were guaranteed autonomy on 11 March 1970 as a part of the resolution of the conflict between Ba'athist Iraq and the Kurds. In 1974, another conflict began, and the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein would find itself fighting against Kurdish rebellions for decades; the Iraqis used chemical weapons against the Kurds during the al-Anfal Campaign of the Iran-Iraq War and also using chemicals in an attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja. In 1991, the Kurds rose in rebellion with US assistance, but the US did not send any ground troops to help the Kurds in their uprising, and the Kurdish uprising was bloodily suppressed. It would not be until after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq that the Kurds would have a chance of gaining an autonomous state in their homeland, and Iraqi Kurdistan's constitution was drafted on 30 January 2005. Today, the conservative Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) rules Iraqi Kurdistan, with the Barzani clan leading the region.